Commentaria in I Esdrae
Chapter 10. Synopsis of the Chapter
Esdras commands that the Gentile wives be put away; officers are designated to carry out this command; those who had taken Gentile wives are listed.
1. Now while Esdras prayed, and besought, weeping, and lying before the temple of God, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men, and women, and children: and the people wept with much weeping. 2. And Sechenias the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Esdras: We have transgressed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: and now if there be penance in Israel for this, 3. let us make a covenant with the Lord our God, to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the will of the Lord, and of them that fear the commandment of the Lord our God: let it be done according to the law. 4. Arise: it is thy business to appoint, and we will be with thee: take courage and do. 5. Then Esdras arose, and made the princes of the priests and of the Levites, and all Israel swear that they would do according to this word: and they swore. 6. And Esdras rose up from before the house of God, and went to the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliasib, and went in thither: he ate no bread, and drank no water: for he mourned for the transgression of them that were come from the captivity. 7. And a proclamation was made in Juda and Jerusalem to all the children of the captivity, that they should be gathered together to Jerusalem: 8. and that whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the ancients, all his substance should be forfeited, and himself cast out from the company of the captivity. 9. So all the men of Juda and Benjamin were gathered together at Jerusalem within three days: it is the ninth month, the twentieth day of the month: and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling for the sin and for the rains. 10. And Esdras the priest arose, and said to them: You have transgressed, and have married strange wives, to add to the trespass of Israel. 11. And now give glory to the Lord the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure, and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from your strange wives. 12. And all the multitude answered, and said with a loud voice: According to thy word to us, so be it done. 13. But because the people are many, and it is the time of rain, and we are not able to stand abroad, and it is not a work of one day or two (for we have sinned exceedingly in this matter): 14. let princes be appointed in all the multitude: and in all our cities, let them that have married strange wives come at the times appointed, and with them the ancients of every city, and the judges thereof, till the wrath of our God be turned away from us for this sin. 15. So Jonathan the son of Azahel, and Jaasia the son of Thecue were appointed over this matter, and Mesollam, and Sabathai the Levite helped them. 16. And the children of the captivity did so. And Esdras the priest, and the men the chiefs of the families in the houses of their fathers, and all by their names, sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. 17. And they made an end with all the men that had married strange wives by the first day of the first month. 18. And there were found of the priests that had married strange wives: of the sons of Josue the son of Josedec, and his brethren, Maasia, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Godolia. 19. And they gave their hands to put away their wives, and for their offence to offer a ram of the flock. 20. And of the sons of Emmer, Hanani and Zebedia. 21. And of the sons of Harim, Maasia, and Elia, and Semeia, and Jehiel, and Ozias. 22. And of the sons of Pheshur, Elioenai, Maasia, Ismael, Nathanael, Jozabed, and Elasa. 23. And of the sons of the Levites, Josabed and Semei and Celaias, he is Calita, Phataia, Juda, and Eliezer. 24. And of the singing men, Eliasib.
Verse 1.
Verse 9.
Verse 3.
Verse 5.
Zacharias, and Jehiel, and Abdi, and Jerimoth, and Elia. 27. And of the sons of Zethua, Elioenai, Eliasib, Mathania, and Jerimuth, and Zabad, and Aziza. 28. And of the sons of Bebai, Johanan, Hanania, Zabbai, Athalai. 29. And of the sons of Bani, Mosollam, and Melluch, and Adaia, Jasub, and Saal, and Ramoth.
30. And of the sons of Phahath Moab, Edna, and Chalal, Banaias, and Maasias, Mathanias, Beseleel, Bennui, and Manasses. 31. And of the sons of Herem, Eliezer, Josue, Melchias, Semeias, Simeon, 32. Benjamin, Maloch, Samarias. 33. And of the sons of Hasom, Mathanai, Mathatha, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jermai, Manasses, Semei. 34. Of the sons of Bani, Maaddi, Amram, and Vel, 35. Baneas, and Badaias, Chelial, 36. Vania, Marimuth, and Eliasib, 37.
Bennui, Semei, 39. and Salmias, and Nathan, and Adaias, 40. and Mechnedebai, Sisai, Sarai, 41. Ezrel, and Selemias, Semeria, 42. Sellum, Amaria, Joseph. 43. Of the sons of Nebo, Jehiel, Mathathias, Zabad, Zabina, Jeddu, and Joel, and Banaia. 44. All these had taken strange wives; and some of them had wives by whom they had children.
1. While Esdras thus prayed and besought (the mercy of God), and wept, and lay before the temple.—Esdras did this to drive the people by his prayer and weeping to penance for the inveterate abuse of taking foreign wives; for he himself here confesses and bewails the sin not his own but of the people, and takes upon himself their person and sin (as Christ also did, of whom Esdras here is a type), and therefore instituted a public prayer, prostrate on the ground with groaning and tears, and lying before the temple, as if thinking himself unworthy to enter the temple and pray there; and that, praying and weeping before the temple, as the Septuagint have it, he might be heard by the whole people standing round.
…though God is to be appeased by penance. For “penance” is sorrow for sins with hope of obtaining pardon. For he who has no hope of pardon does not repent, but despairs like Judas. Wherefore penance includes hope of the remission of sin.
3. Let us make a covenant with the Lord our God, to put away all the wives (foreign), and such as are born of them (lest regard and love for the offspring should draw us to recall their foreign mothers. But since these are our sons, it would be impious and inhuman to cast them off altogether: wherefore let us cast them off not wholly and absolutely, but) according to the will of the Lord, and of them that fear the commandment of the Lord—that is, that we carry out the manner of casting off which wise men and those who fear God shall prescribe to us.
…that they would dismiss them absolutely and altogether; but the sons begotten of them not absolutely, but according to the counsel of Esdras and of the wise who fear God would send them away from themselves. The wise prescribed this manner, that they should send their sons away from themselves and their houses to colleges and schools instituted and to be instituted for the purpose, that in them they might be instructed by prudent men in the true faith, fear and worship of God, and in good morals. So Cajetan.
Great was this resolution of the Jews, plainly serious penance, and a very arduous oath. For they swear that they will cast off their wives, to whom they had been joined with great ardour for so many years, and whom they loved as their own flesh, to satisfy the will and law of God; and that they will do the same with their offspring, whom they cast off as their own members, indeed as living images of themselves and as other selves, since in them they were to survive after death and continually live in the memory of men, and as it were cut off the hope of posterity; as if to say: We prefer to please God rather than our wives and children; we prefer the grace of God to that of our wives. For we love God above every lovable thing: wherefore, to obey his love, religion and law, we shall disown those loved by us for God, and cut them from ourselves as our own members. We shall imitate Abraham our father, who was willing to sacrifice his only Isaac to God.
Note: Some with Bellarmine, book 1 On Matrimony, chapter 23, hold that these marriages of the Jews with foreigners were void and null, because the law of Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 7, forbidding them, seems likewise to make them void and annul them. More probably Cajetan and others hold that by that law they were only forbidden, not made void. For the law expresses nothing of the kind by which it would signify them to be null. Esdras nevertheless dissolved them, because according to the law marriages could be dissolved by the bill of divorce permitted to the Jews, and accordingly in this case they ought to be dissolved, as contracted against the law and forbidden on account of the danger of idolatry.
6. And Esdras rose up from before the house of God, and went to the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliasib.—This “Eliasib” was Pontiff, and son of Joakim. For this was the series of the Pontiffs of that age: Saraias being killed by the Chaldeans, his son Josedec succeeded, to him Jesus, to him Joakim, to him Eliasib, as is plain from Nehemias 12:10; Joakim seems therefore to have been already dead, so that Eliasib succeeded him, as Josephus asserts, book 11, chapter 5, and Eusebius in the Chronicle. That in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Eliasib was Pontiff is certain from Nehemias 3:1.
7. And a proclamation was made in Juda—as if to say: A herald was sent who by his voice should summon and call together all the Jews to Jerusalem under pain of excommunication and confiscation of goods, that they might hear the command of Esdras and the princes concerning the putting away of the Gentile wives. Moreover under Juda and Benjamin understand the other Israelites, who had joined themselves to the tribe of Juda under the leader Zorobabel and Jesus the Pontiff.
9. It is the ninth month, the twentieth day of the month.—Note: The Hebrews used months not solar as we, but lunar. For one lunation, or one course of the moon through the Zodiac, made up one month. Moreover the first month was that whose new moon was nearest the vernal equinox, which now falls about the 21st of March: for then the Hebrews were freed from Egypt after the first celebration of the Pasch and the Paschal Lamb in the first month. This first month was called Nisan, which corresponded to our March in part, in part to April. See what was said on Exodus 12. The ninth month therefore, of which here, was called Casleu, which corresponded partly to our November, partly to December. For the order of the Hebrew months is this: Nisan, Jiar, Sivan, Tammuz, Ab, Elul, Tisri, Merchesvan, Casleu, Tevet, Sabat, Adar. So Genebrard in the Calendar of the Hebrews.
And all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling for the sin and for the rains—as if to say: They trembled inwardly from the conscience of the crime that harassed them, namely that they had taken Gentile wives against the law of God: they trembled likewise outwardly on account of the rains and the cold; for it was November.
11. And now give glory to the Lord God.—Give todhah, that is, confession, praise, glory; as if to say: Repent, and confess to the Lord the guilt of your sin, with a serious and effective purpose of satisfaction and amendment, namely of putting away your foreign wives. For this confession and penance of yours will greatly praise and glorify God. For first it will testify that he is just, and you sinners; secondly, it will subject you to God and to the will and law of God; thirdly, it will remove from you the danger of idolatry; fourthly, it will separate you as faithful and holy from contact with and contamination by the unfaithful and unclean. See what was said on Josue 7:19, where Josue says to Achan: “My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel.”
14. Let princes be appointed—to carry out the edict already published, and to see that each of those who have taken foreign wives dismiss them. Hence it seems that this edict was put into execution, and that each, partly of their own accord, partly compelled by the princes, dismissed their Gentile wives; for Josephus relates expressly that this was done, book 11, chapter 5, and the third book of Esdras, chapter 9, verse 36. Cajetan, however, denies this, and says that Esdras did not prevail so as to be able to carry it out, on account of the multitude of those resisting, who were attached to their wives, but that Nehemias accomplished it after ten years, chapter 13:23: “In those days,” he says, “I saw Jews that married wives of Azotus, and of Ammon, and of Moab: and their children spoke half in the language of Azotus, and they could not speak the Jews’ language, but spoke according to the language of this and that people.”
But this passage does not convince. For it can be said, and it is very probable, that the Jews, after so many promises, oaths, tears and groans, returned to their vomit, and recalled the same foreign wives, or took other similar ones. For expressly the whole people in this place consented with Esdras to the repudiation of the foreigners, as is plain from verse 12, where it is said: “And all the multitude answered, and said with a loud voice: According to thy word to us (as thou hast spoken and commanded us), so be it done.”
17. And they made an end (they were plainly and fully numbered, noted down and entered into a catalogue) with all the men that had married strange wives.—Hence their names are afterwards recounted at length, even those of priests; which shows that the corruption of morals was then great, so that it had pervaded even the priests. Moreover, “as the people, so the priest,” says Isaias 24:2.
44. All these had taken strange wives, and some of them had wives by whom they had children.—For “had borne,” the Hebrew has tasimu, that is, they placed; which some explain thus: Some of the foreign women placed their sons, whom they had conceived of Jews, at the discretion and will of the judges, that they might cast them out or keep them. But this matter did not concern the women, but the husbands and the judges, who here dealt with the men, not with the wives, in the matter and cause. To place sons is therefore the same as to bear, as our version, the Septuagint, Vatablus and